The Burning Stone
Page 286

By the time he returned, a procession of servants had brought trays of food up from the hall: ale, bread, soft cheese flavored with dill, and a pottage of rye meal flavored with salt and cream. She moved aside so that he could sit beside her, and on the whole they ate silently. He was still stewing over the conversation he’d overheard earlier. How had he overlooked that it might have been Anne all along, trying to kill him? She was the obvious choice.
Did Anne truly mean to set Liath against both him and the baby? And how did she mean to accomplish that?
“You’re thoughtful today, my lord prince,” said Heribert.
“Ah, but today is the feast day of St. Mercurius the Changeable,” retorted Liath, “and many stranger things have happened on this day.”
Becoming an invalid had released an unlikely store of humor from some recess deep in Liath’s being. She wasn’t always very funny, but he always felt obliged to laugh because he didn’t want to hurt her feelings, and in any case, it was charming to see her try, who had been so unremittingly serious before.
“It is a strange day,” he agreed. “For once I’m heartily sick of work.”
“I wish we could go somewhere. I don’t think I’ve ever stayed so long in one place as we have here, except for Heart’s Rest, and Qurtubah. I’m used to being on the move. It’s beautiful here, truly, but sometimes I feel like a prisoner.”
Under the tree Blessing finished nursing and as she squirmed, needing to be burped, she began her slow sink through Jerna’s arms and body. Heribert leaped up and ran to fetch her.
“We are prisoners,” Liath added.
“Hush,” said Sanglant, laying a hand over hers. “Come, my love, you’re just tired of the view. We’ll go to the old cottage up—”
Heribert returned and sat down at his place on the couch, mulishly reluctant to give up the baby. He was making stupid faces at her, exaggerated eyes and grins, cooing and ooing, because Blessing had just started to smile, and it was truly astounding the lengths to which the three of them would go to coax one of those sudden half startled smiles out of the tiny infant.
“I don’t know if I can walk that far,” said Liath, but she bit her lip, looking up through the orchard and toward the slopes, as if she’d like to tackle it.
“Then you can ride Resuelto.”
It was as easy to coax her as it was to coax a smile from Blessing, who was as yet a remarkably easygoing baby. They finished their meal and started up the path with the dog running point. Liath walked as far as she could, and when she faltered among the dogwood, Sanglant simply swung her up onto the back of Resuelto. Heribert had refused to give up Blessing, and Jerna trailed somewhat behind, nervous of Liath as she always was. The path was strewn with flowers and a layer of decaying pine needles. Here and there they passed stumps of trees he had chopped down.
“Ai, Lady,” murmured Liath. “Is it terrible of me to wish there was somewhere else to study? Rosvita suggested the convent of St. Valeria, but I think I’m ruined for that now.” She laughed as she looked at him in a way that made his skin flush. An invalidish wife made the marriage bed an uncomfortable place, at least for a man who, before Gent, had never needed to practice self-denial. “Imagine the king’s schola if mathematici were among those welcome to get an education there!”
“Hush,” he murmured, still thinking about the manifold comforts of the marriage bed. “If there are servants about, they’ll carry your words to them below.”
They came past the birch grove to the high clearing and the barrier of cliff and fallen boulders. Summer flowers had sprung up among the spring primroses and snowdrops. It was still difficult to tell the seasons in a valley where any apple tree bore bud, flower, and fully ripened fruit on every branch. But with Liath he had learned to watch the wheel of the stars, and he knew that summer was almost upon them. Out in the world beyond, the campaign season had begun. Did Henry fight in the east? Had he marched south to Aosta, or was he stalled in the north haggling with or threatening recalcitrant nobles? Had Eika attacked again, or had their defeat at Gent weakened them so badly that it would be a generation before they struck the northern coasts with the same fury they had under Bloodheart?
Remarkably, he could think of Bloodheart now without an unwanted growl slipping from him. He hadn’t had a nightmare for two months. He helped Liath off Resuelto. She was so tired, and she dozed off as he settled her down on the pallet in the old hut that they’d made comfortable months ago, the only place they could escape the watchful eyes of Anne’s servants. He had certain vivid memories of those days.